But what in the world do you do if you need to sterilize something that is heat or radiation sensitive?

Enter Dr. Gustavo Varca, worldwide radiation expert.

In this Crash Course, Dr. Varca walks us through 4 ways we can use e-beam technology to sterilize sensitive products, like human cell and tissue products and pharmaceuticals.

4 Tips and Tricks for Sterilizing Sensitive Products

1. Frozen Processing

The first option is to freeze the product, or carry out the processing under frozen conditions. This not only modifies the reaction rate between the reactive species formed during processing, but we can even control their formation.

2. Use Scavengers

The second approach is to use “scavengers,” such as antioxidants. These scavengers block the reactive species without impairing the sterilization process.

3. Lyophilization

Processing the product in solid state through lyophilization also helps minimize degradation.

4. Overload the Active Ingredient

In some cases where degradation is unavoidable, we can use a series of material tests to determine the amount of degradation and overload the active incredient so the desired amounts are still present post-processing.